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Microsoft Looking At Office For Linux In 2014

02-05-2013, 01:20 PM

Phoronix: Microsoft Looking At Office For Linux In 2014

It seems thanks to the increasing market-share of Android devices and the rise of Linux on the desktop thanks to the many commercial Linux gaming initiatives that have been shared in recent months, Microsoft is being forced to take a serious look at Linux and a meaningful look at releasing their popular Office software for Linux in 2014...

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Thorvalds once said something like "when Microsoft starts writing software for Linux, I have won". I think he basically meant that he was not very interested in market shares etc, but that this would be a recognition that the platform had become important. Unfortunately I do not remember the context of the above standing quote.

Comment

Thorvalds once said something like "when Microsoft starts writing software for Linux, I have won". I think he basically meant that he was not very interested in market shares etc, but that this would be a recognition that the platform had become important. Unfortunately I do not remember the context of the above standing quote.

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MS Office on Linux will push the LibreOffice developers to get their act in gear. Competition works both ways. Yay!

Office is already running on BSD (OSX) so the Linux port should not be too hard. It's already running in two different GUI environments, adding a third would not be a stretch.

Who knows they could be maintaining an internal port to linux all along without releasing it, just preparing for the inevitable. They can just whip back the curtain at the appropriate moment. It would not be the first time for such a thing. Apple maintained an Intel port for years before they made their public announcement. Sun had a port of Solaris running on intel since '386 days but it went internal for many years after the "Sun 386i" debacle.

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Microsoft's real moneymaker has always been office. If they see linux become viable for the desktop then I could see them doing this, to make sure they lock as many people as possible into their office ecosystem.